Journal of Public Affairs Education

Review of The Trusted Leader
Though much of the book focuses on how career civil service leaders must or
should act to build trust through effective relationships, this how-to is situated
within a normative concept called values-based leadership. As such, the notion
of values-based leadership may be much more important than the one essay that
is its focus—especially if the book is to be used in its entirety in a course in an
MPA curriculum. The details of relationship building do not occur in a vacuum.
Terry Newell defines values-based leadership in government as “the practice
of leading individuals and organizations from a set of shared core values embodied
in the leaders’ behavior and in the organization’s processes, products and services”
(p. 20). The logical next questions are first, by which moral values; and second,
how do I choose among the value claims upon me? Newell posits that our core
shared moral values as a nation are those that underpin the Declaration of
Independence and the U.S. Constitution. He does not (and indeed likely could
not) “tell” the career civil service leader what specific moral values she or he is to
practice on a daily basis, because the solution is not a list. It is clear that multiple,
competing values will pull in different directions, and decisions will most often
involve value trade-offs. Without saying so explicitly, Newell’s conception of
values-based leadership may in fact be about the ethical dimensions of public
service leadership as trusted leadership. He writes: “Values-based leaders find
ways to transcend the limits of their own thinking—to imagine the values
conflicts they face from multiple perspectives and to see multiple moral choices
about moving ahead” (p. 30).
Newell, Ronanye, and Reeher are clear that
This is not a book of theory, although theory underlies every chapter.
This is a book of practice, of lessons learned on the front lines of
leading government organizations and the perspectives, skills, and
tools that the most effective leaders have mastered. (p. 14)
Each essay is chock full of examples, and each ends with tips for leadership success.
Organization and Content of the Essays
Essays in The Trusted Leader are organized into three major sections mirroring
the premises outlined earlier. Section I, “Relationships: The missing link in
government reform,” contains the introduction and the chapter on the requirement
that values-based leadership is the framework for building public trust in government
through relationships. Sections II and III examine the how-to’s of building specific,
effective, vertical and horizontal relationships within government organizations
and across organizational boundaries.
The arrangement of the essays is not arbitrary. To build trust within government
organizations, the primary relationship is that of self-awareness (an assumption
that is—or was?—also a hallmark of the FEI Leadership for a Democratic Society
Journal of Public Affairs Education 153